WILD INNOCENCE

Contact Improvisation - Authentic movement - 5Rhythms movement meditation - Thai Massage

This retreat is designed as much for beginners in Contact improvisation as much as for experienced dancers who wish to depend their experience.

Presentation:

Touch is one of our primal senses ,we grow in contact from the very beginning of our intra utérin life.

We find balance in our first steps with the dialogue with gravity, embrace the worlds through our hands and bodies in movement.

The organic being we were designed to be frame itself into pattern of society adaptations and behaviors.

The source of play and pleasure of touch and contact is still present in our adult life and often shortened to a more intimate way to relate, within family and friends relationship sometimes and more often limited to love relationships.

Crawling onto the ground getting dirty is pretty rarely happening in modern society anymore.

During this week of laboratory in movement we invite you to redesign the potentiality of contact and ecstatic play through the movement practices that we love the most. Contact Improvisation to understand and grow our physical vocabulary in relating in the dance and build a strong ground in knowing the level of intimacy that is adapted to engage in this interactions with ease and safety. Authentic movement in nature to dive in the magical and sensorial relationship to the elements and the adventurous journey or gestures and postures that expand our perceptions or self and the universe. The 5Rhythms movement practice to develop individual embodiment and ground the maps that support letting go and affirmation in the metaphorical space of dance that have a positive impact into our postures and moves in daily life in our ways to relate and to take action. Thaï massage to care for our bodies and cultivate the goodness fo care within our group.

5 adventurous days in the wild nature of Algarve to expand your dance, relax your nervous system and free your mind from the unnecessary busyness. 

Cofacilitation by Irene Pons and Guillaume Laplane combining more than 20 years of experience and passion for movement as a source of co-creation between human and nature.

 

This retreat counts for 15 hours of Waves as prerequisites on the teacher training path.

And 15 hours of other practices. 

 

Schedule:

We start April 27th at 4pm

We finish at 2pm May 2nd

 

About Irene Pons

« I’m a massage therapist, dancer, and visual artist.
Exploring the connections between body, movement, and presence. »

She is part of the SerVivo team, a community and cooperative based in Vale de Barris (Palmela), within the Arrábida Natural Park. SerVivo is an event venue and living space dedicated to somatic practices such as dance, meditation, bodywork, art, and self-development, where she is currently very involved.

She gives regular Contact Improvisation classes at SerVivo and continues to share intensives abroad, as she has in Malaysia, Thailand, France, and Spain. Her work is also shaped by inspirations and learnings from techniques like Body Weather, Authentic Movement, and Axis Syllabus.

For three years, she deepened her dance practice through residencies with Towards – An Open Institute of Embodied Arts and Transformative Learning in Thailand. Meeting and studying with teachers such as Kirstie Simson, Dolores Dewhurst-Marks, Sasha Dodo, and Katya Basalaeva expanded her vision and understanding of dance, bringing it even more to life. In parallel, she has also been studying Axis Syllabus, mostly with Movement Artisans, to deepen her understanding of biomechanics and explore how to embody a safe and organic approach to dance.

She is an OsteoThai massage therapist. In her approach, she integrates elements of Craniosacral Therapy. She discovered her passion for bodywork through a three-year training in Integrative Body Therapy and Bioenergetics. Later, in Thailand, she fell in love with Thai Massage, studying with teachers such as Mikis Tapaswi and Joe Khumlee, and deepened her practice in OsteoThai at the Thai Circus School in Laos under the guidance of Arno L’Hermite. Currently, she continues her studies, exploring WuoTai.

Beyond her passion for movement and massage, she is also a filmmaker and photographer, with a degree in Audiovisual Studies from the Autonomous University of Barcelona. Her work mainly revolves around dance, movement, and nature. She enjoys collaborating with other artists and creating multidisciplinary projects, including documentaries, video art, and photography.

CONTACT IMPROVISATION

Exploring the Principles of Contact Improvisation

Through various scores and games, we will practice some basic principles of Contact Improvisation: experiencing gravity, sharing weight, and inhabiting different levels. Contact Improvisation, created by Steve Paxton in 1972, is a dance form based on the communication between two moving bodies in physical contact and their combined relationship to physical laws like gravity and momentum.

This workshop offers a taste of possibilities that will help us feel comfortable moving through space and connecting with other bodies. We will dive into the sensation of touch, the art of giving and receiving weight, and the ability to move fluidly between different levels and planes. This practice enhances physical awareness and coordination while fostering a profound sense of connection and presence.

Let’s find freedom and creativity within the structure of Contact Improvisation, and unlocking new possibilities for expression and connection through the language of dance.

EXPLORING DANCE IN NATURE

Becoming one with your surroundings

In today’s digital age, it’s easy to lose touch with the present moment, drifting into other realities. This workshop invites you to reconnect with the here and now, becoming one with your surroundings. Through focused attention and meditation, we will deepen our connection to the present moment and feel an integral part of it.

We will dance, guided by the sounds of nature, the texture of the earth beneath our feet, and the sensations of temperature and environment. Through our senses, authentic dance will emerge. Blindfolded exercises and explorations with partners and groups will foster a sense of community and shared experience, enhancing our connection to both nature and each other.

Join us to rediscover the beauty of being present and to move in tune with the natural world.

 

About Guillaume Laplane:

Architect Epfl and dancer, trained in classical and Contemporary Ballet, Tango Argentino and Contact improvisation, Ecstatic Dance Dj and 5Rhythms facilitator. His approach of movement finds resources into an accurate relationship to the multiple dynamics we meet in our daily lives. Urban environments, natural and wild sites, and the human collective synergies.

Guillaume collaborated with fantastic artists such as Anna Halprin and Marie Motais in performative arts and integrative rituals, with Manuela Blanchard in Contact improvisation on earth and in water, with Margot Anand in meditation and Tantra.

For 18 years he has been facilitating internationally in studios, in cities and in the heart of majestic natural sites such as the Moroccan Desert, the beaches of Corsica and Ibiza, the raw landscapes of Iceland and in interaction with the local cultures of Bali, Russia, Mexico, Hawaii.

Despite a partly nomadic life, beautiful co-creations keep on inspiring local communities into the dance like the Move & Sound association co-created 10 years ago in Geneva with Joyleen Rao that became today The Dancing Tribe with a wonderful team of facilitators.

As well, the LibraDAnse association in Marseille was created 8 years ago and now gathers a large number of facilitators and practices around freeing the dance.

With a large experience in embodiment practices and somatics, Guillaume creates workshops and seminars to embrace movement as a resource for self transformation and expression deepening the quality of relationship with oneself, the others and life environments.

His guidance is clear and creative, expanding the conception of dance to build new personal landscapes of movement embracing all aspects of our existence, physical, emotional, mental and spiritual.

5Rhythms® accredited teacher since 2007, trained with Gabrielle Roth & member of the 5RTA Global.

A team of talented musicians and body practitioners contribute to the magic of every of his events.

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Day schedule

8:30 Breakfast

*10:00-12:30 Movement session

13:00 Lunch break

*16:00-18:30 Movement session

19:30 Dinner

*Extra sessions

- Two sessions per day of dance laboratory, movement meditation , sensorial and poetic explorations on natural sites.

Our adventure grounds are the wooden dance studio, the garden and forest, the sand, rocks and waves of the wild beaches and ocean.

- Time to relax around the tiny lac, go swim in the ocean (20 min drive) and share music jams.

- Delicious vegetarian meals prepared by our chef with local products.

- Private massage sessions can be booked as extras with our best practitioners on site.

- Digital detox